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November 21, 2010

Yankees Set To Offer Jeter 3/45

The Yankees will reportedly offer free agent Derek Jeter a three-year contract worth $45 million, less than the 3/60 possibility the Post's Joel Sherman mentioned last week. The Daily News stated that "it is believed Jeter wants a five- to six-year deal somewhere in the range of $20 million a year."

Jeter, who will turn 37 next June, made $21 million in 2010, and had the worst season of his career. Yet CI apparently wants to play another seven years (he would be 43 years old at the end of the 2017 season) and trainer Jason Riley believes that is "very realistic ... The desire to be the greatest can never be turned down by Father Time."

Really? Could The Mighty Jeter be the one man in human history who can stave off the aging process? His calm eyes may have once stopped a tsunami from destroying a tropical island, but I remain skeptical. Keith Olbermann blogs about coaches trying to get a stubborn Jeter to change his approach as he gets older. His 2010 stats

were not a statistical anomaly. They were the expected outcome of a lifetime of swings and stats and the ravages of time.

That was the point one of the umpteen coaches and advisors who worked with Jeter during the season tried to get through to him. ... Age, not laziness on the weight machine, adds that half-second to your swing. Age, not sloth, turns those little flares over the heads of the second baseman and shortstop into smothered balls skittering into their gloves. Age, Mr. Jeter, comes for us all.

One person in the Yankees front office says the team should play hardball: "Tell him the deal is three years at $15 million a year, take it or leave it. Wait him out and he'll wind up taking it. Where's he gonna go, Cincinnati?"

14 comments:

If you take away what he has done in the past -- nostalgia cannot help you win in 2011, 2012 and 2013 -- he is a guy in his late 30s who cannot field very well and a singles hitter whose OPS+ (90) was a bit worse than Marco Scutaro (92) or Daniel Nava (91). Jeter and Eric Patterson each created 4.3 runs per 27 outs. ... Life would be fine without a guy like that.

Whatever he gets per year will be too much in relation to his value. (Fangraphs says he gave the MFY $9.8 million in value last year, but I don't really get how they figure that and every single # I see seems too high.)

I am more surprised that he might think the team would commit to another six years!

I was involved in union negotiations years ago, and the management guy looked at our maximalist demands and said, "Whose ass did you pull those numbers out of?"

Well, he nailed it, and we were duly ashamed because we had not done enough homework and had no clear rationale for our position other than the classic Samuel Gompers one ("More!)

We had to do better than that if we wanted to be taken seriously. Jeter is pulling those years and dollars out of his ass--he'd be playing in Old Timer's Day games as one of the oldtimers in six years. He looks foolish making such demands.

One of the hardest parts of growing old is the denial, the refusal to admit to oneself what is happening. I sympathize with that immensely, but Jeter is now in the land of combovers, plastic surgery, trophy wives, fast sports cars, cool clothes--all sham ways of 'staying young.'

He ain't young and he ain't getting any younger, and it's sad and pathetic and annoying too for his denial of reality to be on the front pages.

and L I think Red Sox fans realize his worth to the rivalry and the yankees more than the yankees do, if that is obsessing , then I quess we do obsess over him, for a lot of us he is the one constant in the last decade in a half, I am sure Red Sox fans obsessed over Mantle and Dimaggio as well.

I think he is a huge part of the rivalry and to me that is a good thing, and to see him wither away as a ballplayer right before our is a good thing, I hope he knows when to say goodbye, alot argue Mantle stayed to long and Dimaggio got out in his prime......it still is interesting in a boring offseason...

One of my rabid Yankee fan friends (NOT Harvey) said that Jeter adds much more than his on field performance. This is someone who is generally fairly rational. I pointed out that Red Sox fans said the same about Lowell and Varitek, but in the end, clubhouse morale and team spirit do not win games. Even I, a sentimental fan of the pre-sabremetrics era, can accept that hard work and commitment cannot outweigh aging and injuries. If it did, I would be much more committed and hard-working!

I meant the 5 New York papers, and sports radio here is having a field day with it....it's not even an issue yet, but it shows you the grip he has on New York media...they love everything yankees, they do sell newspapers...